Changing the climate - by Richard... Friday, January 22, 2010

Changing the climate - by Richard... Friday, January 22, 2010

Pace The Daily Mail this morning, Dr R K Pachauri now seems to have acquired the permanent tag of "controversial", which hangs over him like the proverbial albatross. The description of "lobbyist" can't help either.

Another tag now firmly lodged is "former railway engineer", as in The Daily Express, which carries somewhat less of a cachet than "world's leading climate scientist". 

Meanwhile, we are awaiting the outcome of the press conference Pachauri promised reportersyesterday. Despite the time difference, there are no reports as yet, which makes one wonder whether the promise was yet another bit of Pachauri bluster.

Either way, the "climate" is definitely changing, and it isn't the one Pachauri is making money out of.

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The agendas merge - by Richard...

Regular readers might recall a time when a man called David Cameron – although we most often called him something else – was quite often the subject of our attention. But he is now rarely mentioned.

This, to a great extent, reflects his betrayal over the EU referendum, putting us in the position where have little interest in what he has to say and believe little of what he does. The very small residue of trust we had in Cameron's Conservatives has been totally and irrevocably destroyed.

If it were not for his destitute EU agenda, however, his obviously genuine enthusiasm for greenery – probably the only thing genuine about the man - would undoubtedly prove a similar barrier, as any man who can embrace the warmist creed with such gusto has to be all bad.

Yet another odious characteristic of the man is his insistence on a soft-left social agenda, draped in Tory clothes, demonstrating his credentials as a caring, family-orientated "leader".

But now, naked in tooth and claw, we are seeing the ugly side of "Compassionate Conservatism", where "call me Dave" is planning to combine his greenie obsession with his families package.

Thus we hear that motorists and air passengers face higher "green taxes" under Conservative plans to fund tax breaks for married couples. The money raised will be earmarked for a new "family fund" to cut income tax for families. 

Options for taxation range from an increase in petrol duty to new levies on flights and firms that "pollute". But the Tories are also considering reintroducing the fuel-duty escalator - abandoned by Labour following widespread protests over the high cost of filling up.

Needless to say, "call me Dave" and boy George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, are cautious about discussing these taxes "after earlier plans backfired," and not least because some MPs (rightly) fear they could lose the party votes. 

But this dire pair remain insistent that, in time, "green taxes will be necessary". Osborne even says: "Green taxes on environmentally-damaging activities and consumption will fund our family policies in the long term. We are committed to them."

Despite all that has happened in the last few months, and the very obvious signs of a change in public sentiment on "global warming", this pair have not yet cottoned on to the fact that green taxes will be about as popular as a Moslem fundamentalist at a BNP meeting.

But the ultimate stupidity, which clearly has not percolated into what passes for brains in this dire pair, is the failure to join up the dots, and understand that the "families" they purport to want to help are the very ones which will be hit hardest by "green" taxes under consideration.

Only thus could they come up with such a moronic idea of easing the financial plight of [some] families, only to claw it back in accordance with a greenie mantra that is long past its sell-by date. The only possible explanation for this is that, stupid as Cameron and Osborne undoubtedly are – they believe they are smarter than the electorate they are trying to con.

Poster courtesy of Andy Barefoot.

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Now that's robust - by Richard...

Despite the ["glaciergate"] controversy, the IPCC said that it stood by its overall conclusions about glacier loss this century in big mountain ranges including the Himalayas. "This conclusion is robust, appropriate, and entirely consistent with the underlying science and the broader IPCC assessment," it said.

That is from the distinctly wimpish report in The Times, which does not hesitate to retail one of the IPCC's favourite words - robust. But, on the other hand, we get an Indian blogger give us his "take" on the affair:

Pachauri now says "I don't want to stoop to the level of muck that some people are trying to create." The muck is in your face Mr Pachauri, and it is pretty dirty and it is sticking. You need to clear it. 

All that you have to do, if your conscience is clean, is to disclose your and TERI's earnings, the sources thereof, and the details of how all that money is being spent by the non-profit organisation you have been part of since 1981. If you and Hasnain and others like you really have nothing to hide, or be ashamed of, why the hesitation?

Now, that's robust – but then, so are the comments on The Times piece.

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